This time around, the social network has moved to buy up the team of developers behind Tagtile, a customer loyalty mobile app which rewards consumers with various incentives and offers.

According to Techcrunch, the financial terms weren’t disclosed, but it’s a pretty safe bet the outlay for the start-up didn’t run near the same sort of money offloaded for Instagram.

Facebook wrote in an e-mail statement: “We’re happy to confirm that TagTile’s founders are joining Facebook, and that Facebook is acquiring substantially all of the company’s assets. We’ve admired the engineering team’s efforts for some time now and we’re excited to have them join Facebook.”

Tagtile announced in a statement on its website: “Today, we are happy to announce that we are joining Facebook, and that they are acquiring substantially all of our assets. It’s a huge opportunity for us to take our goal – helping businesses grow – and do it on a much, much bigger scale than we could have on our own.”

Tagtile further noted that while it won’t be taking on any new customers as of now, the service will continue to function as per normal for the time being.

The firm added: “We’ll be reaching out to customers directly once future plans are set, but Tagtile as it exists today won’t be part of what we do at Facebook.”

The developers are doubtless set to become part of Facebook’s grand plan to tie in e-commerce and social shopping with its network, and explore further avenues of making money from retail businesses with various offers.